Souta Takanashi
|kanji= |japanese name=Takanashi Sōta |alias=Katanashi (Popura), Kotori (crossdressed) |race=Japanese |gender=Male |age=16 |height=172 cm (S1 & S2) 175 cm (S3) |weight=52 kg |birthday=January 13th (Capricorn) |eyes=Sienna |hair=Chestnut |blood type=A |base of works=Wagnaria Resturant |occupation=Waiter |previous occupation= |partner=Inami Mahiru (Girlfriend) |previous partner= |status=Alive |relatives= Shizuka Takanashi (Mother) Kazue Takanashi (Sister) Izumi Takanashi (Sister) Kozue Takanashi (Sister) Nazuna Takanashi (Sister) Toru Minegishi (Brother-in-law) |equipment= Hand extender |manga debut=Chapter 1 |anime debut=Episode 1 |japanese voice= Jun Fukuyama, Kenichi Suzumura (drama CD) |english voice= |image gallery= yes |species = Human}}Souta Takanashi (小鳥遊 宗太 Takanashi Sōta) is a 16 year-old high school student who works at Wagnaria Resturant as a newly recruited waiter at the start of the series. He serves as one of the main protagonists in Working!!. His cross-dressing persona is called Kotori (小鳥). Appearance Takanashi is a lean, slim yet athletic young man with a slight tone of tan skin, has sienna-colored eyes, and dropped brown-colored hair with bangs that fall down to his eyebrows. He wears round-shaped glasses, although when he cross-dresses, he doesn't wear them. Takanashi's main waiter clothes consist of a long sleeve, buttonless pure white polo, with a black bow-tie tied around its collar and placed front of the neck, and is tucked with long black pants. When Takanashi is seen after work, he wears a black blazer-style Japanese uniform- his school clothes. As Kotori, his appearance drastically changes. Takanashi's brown hair is hidden underneath a long, pink-colored wig with shaggy bangs across his forehead. His skin tone becomes lighter due to foundation, and his bust is bigger than usual. Takanashi wears a uniform similar to the other waitresses in Wagnaria, which includes a white blouse with a stand collar, a black ribbon tied into a bow around his neck, a black pleated skirt, and dress shoes. He also wears a pair of black nylon pantyhose. Personality Takanashi has an absolute obsession with cute little things, which is his original reason for working at the restaurant, as Taneshima had recruited him. This obsession started from his siblings due to all being older than him (except Nazuna and being taxing they being taxing to him (hitting him, embarrassing him, unable to do anything without him) that causes him to hate older people. As such, he considers any woman and child over 12 a hag or ugly, and dislikes them, but shows love and compassion to young children and small cute things. This often gets people to think he is a lolicon. For Takanashi, it relatively gives him relief from stress whenever he is in eccentric situations with his co-workers in Wagnaria. Takanashi is very responsible person. He works very hard on his jobs, barely being absent to his shifts. He balances high school, housework and the part time job all at the same time, and is very dependable on both his co-workers and siblings. Although he is blunt and a bit strict at times, as such telling Inami harsh words due to her being violent to him, and scolds Yamada when she's not working, Takanashi is actually kind in person, despite the fact that he hates older people. Although he may not look like it, but Takanashi is completely oblivious when it comes to love, specifically, Inami's feelings toward him. For example, when he gave Inami hairclips as a White Day Present, and then dating her. Initially this was because he is concentrated in curing Inami's phobia, but in further seasons, Takanashi begun realizing his feelings, that because of this, annoys him a lot and is dishonest about it. Takanashi also has a grudge over cross-dressing issues, mainly because he spent much of his childhood clothed with his sisters' hand-me-downs looking like a girl, and then he crossdresses again when he helped Inami various times. Background As a child, Takanashi frequently uses his sisters' clothing, that spent much of his childhood dressed as a girl. Despite his protests to his mother, she enjoyed the sight of him as a girl so much that she refused to buy him male clothes. At some point (presumably when their mother was away), he managed to get male clothes and began dressing normally. When he was 4, Kozue bought him a rabbit doll, which he still has, and is one of the few cute things in his room. Synopsis Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Equipment Takanashi's most notable equipment is his hand extender. Afraid of Inami might punch him, he is using it, mainly for holding her hand or giving things. After Inami accidentally broke it, he bought two of them. He uses only one of it though. Relationships Love-life: Inami Mahiru: Takanashi's initial relationship with his androphobic co-worker was a strained one, due to the punching that he only survived due to his durability. His first compliment to her was forced; however, over the course of the series, he has developed feelings for her, which caused him some stress. First, he resolved his feelings by equating her to a cute, savage dog that he was training. He, however, realized that his feelings were not the same, after becoming jealous over Kirio and frustrated that she didn't want to stay with him to cure her androphobia. Since he has managed to restrain her punches, he has since considered her cute as a person and has developed romantic feelings, which causes him some stress due to his adherence to the love of small things Working!! Anime season 3 episode 4. He has become aware of his feelings, which triggered his mother's return to their home, and asked Inami out on a date after suffering pressure about what his mother might do. In the conclusion of the series, Souta and Inami become a couple. Family: Souta's family is the reason for his obsession over cute things, as they are all larger and tend to be mean to him. However, he likely feels a parental role for them, as he cooks meals, does household chores and manages their funds. * Parents: Although Souta lives with his four sisters, they do not live with their parents. Since the three oldest sisters are older than twenty, they are allowed to take care of Takanashi and Nazuna. It was revealed that Takanashi's father passed away, and their mother is occupied with work to the point of being unable to see them. The siblings hate meeting their mother, as meeting Minegishi (whom none of them wanted to meet at all) was considered a far better alternative to meeting their mother. Given that her treatment of them, with the exception of Nazuna, is far from normal parenting behavior, their dislike is well founded. *'Kazue Takanashi': His eldest sister. Souta is wary of her law book, as she has a tendency to throw it at him. *'Izumi Takanashi': His second older sister. Souta tends to spoil her, due to her weak body and inability to do anything by herself. He cleans her room almost daily due to the buildup of rejected drafts she throws around, and often drags her around the house when she feels too weak to move. *'Kozue Takanashi': His third older sister. Souta is extremely embarrassed by her in public, and has little patience for her drunk antics and her want for his love/comforting. He often abandons his co-workers to her when she shows up at Wagnaria, although will scold her if she becomes too carried away. *'Nazuna Takanashi': His younger sister. Nazuna is the only sibling Souta expresses his affection for openly, but as she is 12 and the same height as him, quite often thinks of her growth with despair. She often helps him with household chores, manipulating her other sisters and giving him advice whenever Souta has particular trouble with them. Co-workers: *'Popura Taneshima': Takanashi is obsessed with cute things, and therefore, has a deep affection for Taneshima. Even though she is over 12 years old, Takanashi makes an exception for her because of her petite stature. However, he claims that his feelings for Taneshima are innocently paternal, and thinks of her as a water flea, someone who can't defend themselves, so he must defend them himself. He is seen constantly throughout the series calling her cute and adorable, so there might be a possibility that he has feelings for her. But this is very unlikely since he calls every little thing like that, but Taneshima is the only one to be always at Souta's side. So it is to be expected that he calls her cute and adorable more often than others. Furthermore there are several scenes that prove he doesn't have any romantic feelings for her and only sees her as a friend and a little child. *'Kyouko Shirafuji': Kyouko accepted Takanashi at first because he was the new recruit, however, after Takanashi asked about Kyouko's age, and she told him that she was 28, he called her old. From then on, Kyouko has had a grudge against Takanashi, and will do anything to wear him out such as doubling his shifts, or cutting back his hours. However, over the course of the series, Takanashi has been slowly getting back into Kyouko's good graces. *'Jun Satou': Satou, like all the other workers, helps Takanashi whenever he is confused about something. Satou is also the only person Takanashi thinks is normal in the restaurant. *'Yachiyo Todoroki': When Takanashi first saw Yachiyo, he thought that she was beautiful, but strange for carrying around a katana, but then learned in episode three that she carries it around because her family owns a blade shop. Yachiyo often helps Takanashi whenever he is confused. *'Souma Hiroomi': Souma and Takanashi are good friends and share the pain of Inami's punch. However, Souma often uses Takanashi's dark secret to get him to do work for him. *'Aoi Yamada': When Takanashi first met Yamada, he immediately saw through all of her lies and didn't like the fact that she didn't tell the truth. Because he can see through her lies, he is the only one in the restaurant that knows Yamada's real story. He also notices, along with Satou, that Yamada slowly steals from the restaurant bit by bit. Yamada also breaks all of the plates and glasses, making her slow everyone down. Takanashi tries to work through all of Yamada's secrets so he can expose her for who she really is. Others * [[Kirio Yamada|'Kirio Yamada']]: Souta dislikes Kirio, being more rude to him than most and not being afraid to use self-defense to hurt him. Originally, this was due to Kirio's liking of Mahiru and Souta's jealousy for whenever he interacts with her, although he refused to admit he's jealous. More recently, Kirio's teasing of Souta's feelings for Inami are the trigger for his violence against Kirio. * [[Toru Minegishi|'Toru Minegishi']]: Souta, like all his elder sisters, dislikes Toru to the point of wanting to beat him up, and is embarrassed by the fact that they were formerly brothers-in-law. Trivia *Takanashi's dark secret is that when he was little, he dressed like a girl since he got all his hand-me-downs from his sisters. Therefore, in all of his childhood photos, he looks like a girl. Souma often uses this secret against Takanashi. *Popura often goes to Takanashi first when someone calls her short, but he never helps because he always says that she's better short. *Takanashi is always called "Katanashi" by Popura since she is so bad with pronouncing names. He tried correcting her once but with no avail, he has now accepted the name for only Taneshima. *Takanashi made a cameo on the first episode of WWW.Working!!. Lines (Quotes) * "Senpai, you're so small and cute!" * "I LOVE THESE KINDS OF CREATURES!" * "You're so cute, Inami-san!" References Category:Characters Category:Male Characters Category:Working!! Characters